When preparing carpet for storage or shipment, it is usually desirable to roll the carpet about an elongated tube or core to form the carpet into a large spiral roll. This keeps the spiral roll from being flattened when the roll rests on the floor or is stacked among other rolls. The central tube usually is a long hollow cardboard tube of twelve to fifteen feet in length and about four inches in diameter. Prior to use, the cardboard tubes usually are delivered to the carpet manufacturer in large bundles of fifty-two tubes bound together by steel cables. The carpet is rolled in large roll-up machines such as, for example, the roll-up machine disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,102,512, Lewallyn, and the cardboard tubes are placed into the roll-up machine prior to rolling of the carpet. The cardboard tubes may be placed in the machine by hand or automatically by tube dispensing machines. Typically, automatic tube dispensing machines have experienced problems of the tubes becoming twisted and jammed within the dispensing machinery, resulting in delays in the roll-up process and damaging the tubes.